“I know Old Falzone gave you the order, but did Don Ciancetta tell him to give it to you?”
Well I got one foot on the platform/The other foot on the train
I’m goin’ back to New Orleans/ To wear that ball and chain
Sonne’s bloody smile cracked out of the corner of his mouth and his eyes revealed a slight edge of superiority that flashed for a moment. The gleam in his eye was not lost on the assassin.
With a half-scoff Sonne spat at the assassin, “You stupid fuck, the old Ciancetta has no clue what’s going on. We all know Falzone holds the real power with his union support. You think that old bastard lets Falzone have control over the unions out of the goodness of his heart? You were just the first target in a hostile takeover man, one of Ciancetta’s bitches that were deemed ‘in the way’ and ‘expendable’.”
The arrogant and victorious tone that Sonne took with the assassin did not sit well with Rontego and Sonne found that out with another sharp rap to the left side of his face. Rontego then took a step back from Sonne and reached into his shoulder holster which held his pistol.
Well there’s a house in New Orleans
Rafael Rontego reached into his left pocket and pulled out a thin metal tube with screw ridges protruding from the bottom of it: a silencer. Sonne’s eyes began to widen even more, so that the whole of his face seemed unable to contain the enormous apertures.
They call the Rising Sun
The assassin screwed the silencer into the barrel of his pistol. His eyes snapped up and focused on those of Salvatore Junior—Sonne—Pieri.
And It’s been the ruin of many a poor boy
Sonne opened his mouth as if to scream, his eyes never leaving the assassin’s, sweat trickled down from his forehead and mixed with the blood still flowing unabated from the wounds in his cheek. His neck strained and every muscle in his face became taut as he tried to let out some sort of noise to voice the protest welling up inside of him. Rafael lifted his pistol and took aim.
“Seems Old Falzone deemed you…expendable,” Rontego stated it as fact.
Sonne was now quite certain that this was fact.
And God I know I’m one
With a flash of the muzzle and a slight emanation of sound through the silencer, the bullet impacted the center of Sonne’s forehead at a speed in excess of three thousand feet per second. The .22 caliber bullet penetrated the forward section of Sonne’s skull but did not have enough force to drive through the back of it as the speed slowed down thanks to the initial entrance into the capo’s cranium. The result was a ricochet effect that sent the bullet and pieces of skull ripping into the soft tissue of Pieri’s brain.
If death had not consumed the man so fast, and if he could have registered each shred as the foreign material cut new paths into his brain matter, he might have described it as hundreds of migraine headaches happening in rapid succession, nanoseconds apart. As it was, death was as instant as death can be and the blinding flash of the muzzle was the last thing he ever knew.
His eyes remained wide open and his head snapped backward with the impact. Then, it eased forward with the force of gravity and his chin came to rest upon his chest as if he dozed. Rontego stood there for a moment and looked at the fresh kill. And as if frozen in time at the instant of death the song repeated over and over.
And God I know I’m one. And God I know I’m one. And God I know I’m one…
The damn thing was skipping. Rontego shook his head and broke from the eerie trance. With a grunt he walked over to the stereo and yanked the plug away from the wall and sent a shower of sparks into the air. Just like that, there was silence once more.
*
Victor Garducci walked silent with his thoughts into the cold Buffalo night. He glanced at the now crumpled piece of paper in his palm. The address was not so far away, and despite the blistering cold, Victor decided to walk the distance. He traveled two blocks, and then the two became four. As the snow began to saturate his clothing, Victor slowed as he came to within a block of the address on the paper.
1371 West Boat Shuttle Street was a decent place. Garducci frequented the place quite often for more pleasant business, a few months prior, when he was ‘officially’ undercover. He shared in a pie ‘on the house’.
It didn’t make sense though. As far as he knew, the place was controlled by Don Ciancetta himself. He would never have to make a payment to a capo like Sal. The funds always shifted up the chain of command.
The money chain. He would have to explore this more. Victor decided that the best thing to do, for the moment, would be to continue on and see what came of the inquiry into Sal’s whereabouts. At the least it would gain him confidence with the crew and might allow for him to gain information on the Sobranie which littered Jack’s death scene.
As he walked, Alex Vaughn thought of the times he spent with his dear friend, within the snowy confines of the Buffalo winter. They were both adamant Buffalo Bills fans and spent a large percentage of their income on season tickets. Year after year they were let down, but each year was followed with a ‘this year is our year’.
They spent the crazy years of ’91 to ’94 together getting drunk in glorious AFC championships only to get drunk later in depression due to horrid letdown after horrid letdown in the Super Bowls. After the third loss in a row, Jack defined the character which he embodied and which appealed to Alex. Vaughn was depressed, thinking the ultimate glory would never come to fruition.
“Always second best man, the story of my life,” Alex muttered over a stiff Kessler Whiskey.
Jack looked at him and a frown crossed his face, the look was etched into Alex’s memory now.
“Second best eh? Well, I don’t think it’s that bad, to be honest,” Jack said with a certain tone that made Alex look up from the drink he sipped.
“How so?”
Jack looked him dead in the eye and said, “Bro, these are our boys, and they have proven better than all but one team in the entire league. ‘Least we were still able to go out, root for our guys, get drunk together and have a good time, one more night then the other guys out there. And best yet, we get to hang out together and get drunk one more time before the Monday morning grind.”
Then he laughed. Not a fake laugh that you often get in those stupid moments of depression. He laughed a full- hearted, schoolboy laugh, a laugh that made you feel better about any situation, no matter how dreary it was.
Jack was like that when Charlotte left. Even when she took Ella away. He made Alex laugh and made any darkness seem like a fleeting thing.
Now, though, the light that he brought to Alex’s world was extinguished. Alex’s brother had been taken from him. The clue to who did it was tucked away within Inhaled Imports. If this trip to Super Nova Pizza, to Sal’s collection, helped shed any illumination on the shadowy enterprises that surrounded Jack’s death, then that’s where Alex was going to go.
As the snow fell down around him and settled on his shoulders, Alex walked to the vicinity of Sal’s dark green Escalade. He was now close to wherever Sal was and he needed to make contact with him and bring him to the bosses at Wizeguys.
As he neared Sal’s SUV, Victor Garducci smelled smoke. Not the smell of cigarette smoke, but rather the smell of burning paint and timber. Alex looked up and into the swirling winds he saw the unmistakable thick clouds of gaseous smoke. The smoke rose from the approximate location of Super Nova.
Before Victor could contemplate the ramifications of the situation, a small man ran into view. He stood about 5’7”. He wore a pair of wrinkled and worn blue jeans and a thick brown turtleneck. His face was set in a sort of impenetrable scowl, but he was unemotional except for the breath coming out in rasps from what must have been a recent run. He had gray eyes that seemed to never blink and slick black hair that fell on one side in front of his right eye.
Salvatore Senior, Sal, was now in plain view of Victor. As Salvatore ran up to his Escalade, Victor Garducci ran up and yelled out to his old pa
l.
“Hey Sal-e! Wait up, man!”
Sal stopped with one hand on the door handle and looked up towards the voice. With a start he realized who it was calling his name.
“Holy Fuck! Vic! Hurry up and get in man.”
Sal jumped in the SUV and reached across, unlocking the passenger side door. Victor jumped in, happy to be out of the cold. Sal didn’t wait for Victor to get settled. Instead, he backed up out of his parallel parking spot and let the tires squeal as he punched the accelerator too early. After that, however, there was silence as Sal sped off, checking his rearview and side mirrors in turns. They rounded the block and headed up towards Wizeguyz Billiards, and Victor broke the paranoid quiet. He summoned the courage to ask his old captain, “Sal, what the hell is going on around here?”
Sal looked at him, but did not answer.
After another long pause he asked, “What do you mean? Falzone didn’t send you up to get me?”
Garducci thought about all the possible answers he could give, truths and lies. He decided the truth might work a bit better in this situation.
“No, Marano and Lucano sent me, said you were late and might need a hand. They didn’t tell me what you might need a hand with though. Shit, man, just tell me what the hell went down. I get back after a few months settling my debts and the next thing I know, before a ‘Hi, how are ya’, I’m sent off to find you and they don’t even know what happened to you!”
Victor knew his face was red, and he could feel his heart rate jump. He hoped Sal would relate it to anger, that he didn’t enjoy being so out of the loop.
It worked.
Sal gave him a look. Victor could see he wanted to assuage his old pal’s fears, and was happy when Sal decided to fill him in.
“Well, best I can figure is they thought I wouldn’t be able to handle the job, that or I had gotten caught or something. It wasn’t so hard; it just took me longer because they didn’t close up till late.”
Victor looked at Sal. Sal glanced over from his watch on the road and flashed a wicked smile at his pal. Garducci was confused.
“What job? What did you do?”
Sal looked over again with an excited tremor edging his voice and said, “Burned Ciancetta’s place to ashes, man. Old man Falzone is making his move on the top spot. Just between me and you though, he had it coming to him. We all run his illegitimate businesses and then that fat fuck decides to have an untouchable legitimate business? Who the fuck does he think he is, hording all the wealth himself? And let’s be honest. We all know that a lot of illegitimate activity takes place in his so-called ‘legit’ pizzeria.”
Sal was looking self-important by this point. Victor decided to take some of the wind out of his sails.
“Well whose bright idea was that? Ciancetta is just going to collect the insurance anyway.”
Pieri Senior’s head snapped around and almost with an accusatory tone stated as flat as if he were reading stock quotes from the Wall Street Journal, “Well, maybe so, but each week that place is outta commission, that shit-bag loses thousands. It’s gonna take that bastard months to rebuild that place. Too bad though, I did like to eat some pizza there! Am I right bro? That was some good shit!”
With that, Sal began to laugh in an adrenaline-inspired frenzy.
Victor almost said, “What if he just runs his business through his other joint across town?” but decided against further pushing his friend’s already tenuous mental and emotional threshold.
They drove along in silence after that, the only noise the steady hum of the engine and the back and forth scrapping of the windshield wipers pushing snow off of the car. Sal would look over at him and after a second of contemplating (which Victor Garducci pretended to ignore) he would exclaim something along the lines of “Damn good to see you, bro” or “Glad you’re back, man.”
Victor would voice how agreeable it was indeed to be back and then glance out the window and watch as the buildings rolled on by into the snowy blackness beyond. Sal kept looking over, as if he were itching to say something, but then at the last moment decided to keep whatever it was to himself.
Although the drive was less than ten minutes, the tension that Victor felt made the ride seem like a grueling journey. Serious things were afoot here, and Victor was now smack dab in the middle of it. It seemed he’d thrust himself right in the middle of a damned mafia power struggle.
His plan was to get in using his undercover guise, and then get the information he needed and then disappear again. He was low level enough under normal circumstances that no one would miss him that much, especially with the disorganization of modern organized crime. Now though, every man would be accounted for. And retaliation would be rained down for the burning of Don Ciancetta’s prize jewel, the Super Nova.
As far as Victor was concerned, he might be sitting next to a dead man. Another cause for concern was for Alex Vaughn’s buddy Ryan Slate. He too would be enmeshed in this mafia war. Even worse, he would be connected with the Ciancettas. The two of them might find themselves on opposing sides of this mess.
Also, being a low level associate of Joey Ciancetta, Leo Junior’s son would make him a prime target, if just to send a message to the Boss. Ryan Slate, also known as Ricky Vincenzio, might just be in line to be used as cannon fodder.
There is an old saying that you should never shoot the messenger. Well, the way things worked with wise guys was that the message was a bullet riddled corpse.
Joseph Falzone enjoyed a lot of power; he controlled the numbers and with the support of the Union he was a hard man to touch, but Ciancetta boasted the backing of the other organized families, the ones in New York City.
It would be interesting to see if they tried to snatch up some territory in the midst of this war. Perhaps they would let the Buffalo crews duke it out themselves. Wars were notorious for being sloppy and getting people pinched. They might just stay out of the mix.
Then again, mobsters were known for being greedy and getting pinched might just become an afterthought. Most of the other families would stay out of it but a select few would ask to get involved and they would be allowed to go to the highest bidder, or the faction that would be most able to line the pockets of the other families.
Of course, those select few mercenaries would be allowed to enter into the fray with the understanding that they were, in fact, not allowed to go; but only if anyone asked any questions. The plain fact of the matter was that the mercenaries would still be expected to kick some percentage of their earnings back upstairs to their superiors, permission or not. Permission mattered if and when you were caught, or whether or not you funneled the correct percentages upstairs.
The car stopped. They were not at the pool hall though.
“Where are we?” asked Garducci. He tried to mask his concern with a touch of annoyance.
Sal looked at him and said, “Man, you forget places quick. What happened, that sun and heat over in New Mexico melt your brain? We’re at Frankie DeRisio’s. You think I was gonna make you sleep on the streets? Not a guy in old Sal’s crew. Come on, we’ll make this bastard give us some food.”
For a second, Victor was hesitant, but then it dawned on him that he hadn’t eaten that day.
“Yeah, but let’s be quick about it, the bosses want to talk with you.” Victor needed to look good so if he needed to ride Sal all night to get him over to Aldo and Muro then Victor was going to do it, right after a quick, late night snack.
Chapter 9
One thing was for sure, Rafael needed to get the bodies out of his house. Three bodies in one’s home never looked good. It did not look good if most precincts, and the FBI, had a dossier on you as well, and then three bodies are found in your home.
Though these shits broke into his place, calling the police was out of the question. If they got involved it would be forever until Rontego could operate on a subsistence level just for fear of getting pinched. The local squad cars were bought off at any rate.
At first,
the assassin was tempted to go over to Don Ciancetta and warn him of the dangers heading his way, and then ask for some help disposing of the bodies. But Rafael wasn’t quite sure how he was going to play his cards regarding the issue of this mob war.
Despite all the implications, one thing was for sure; the bodies had to go and had to go soon. Three bodies couldn’t very well be tossed in one trunk. Rafael grimaced as he considered the fat fuck that fell asleep during the botched assassination attempt on Rontego.
If he did them one at a time, it would take hours. As much as he hated it, Rafael was going to need to bring in help on this one.
He worked before with this guy from out of one of the local villages outside of Buffalo, Hamburg or Angola. They called him the Cleaner. The guy ran his business under the guise of a carpet cleaning operation he liked to call Busy Bumble Bees.
He was hard to book; he hated anyone calling him in unless it was a planned operation. He thought spur of the moment killings were best left to the gangland hits of the unorganized “niggers.” The prick was a racist, but he did his job well.
His one worry was getting caught and if he thought you were going to bring him down he would just hang up the phone on you. He even had a code for ordering hits, and you got the code if you were referred by a big boss or if he told it to you himself.
Lucky for Rontego, after he worked with him on the hit for Ciancetta, years back during Old Leo’s rise to power, the Cleaner told him to call whenever he needed and gave him the code.
Rafael looked at the mess in his apartment. He checked himself over, no blood on his clothes. That was one good thing. Rafael put his coat back on and exited his apartment. On his way out, he dead bolted the lock. It wouldn’t do to have any late night and unexpected visits from the landlady this evening.
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